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          “In the cities the wounded and dying cry out, but God ignores their prayers.”  This cry of Job must be one of the most poignant statements in the Scriptures.  Although the scholars keep telling us this is an anguished cry for help from a man in intense pain, it sounds more like a cry of despair.  After all, this is the same Job who also cried: “I give up, I am tired of living.  Leave me alone.  My life makes no sense.”  But the scholars must be right:  knowing Job, a man of faith, his outburst must have been […]

       Do you remember, from your childhood days, the neighborhood football game when everyone wanted to play quarterback?  Sometimes you’d stand around and argue and take forever getting started.  Usually the way it was     resolved was that the one who owned the ball got to call the plays.  But finally, everyone had to agree to play a different position, otherwise you could not even have a game.        Then, if you stayed with the sport and gave yourself a little time to grow up, you discovered that it can be just as much fun to throw […]

          All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments. We have heard about them all our lives. Many of us could recite most of them from memory. They are the moral and ethical foundation upon which our society is based. Without them, it would be impossible for people to live together in peace and harmony.  But there is another set of laws that are even more basic than the Ten Commandments. We could call these the “Twin Commandments”.          The first is a quotation from the book Deuteronomy in the Old Testament: […]

            For all of us, life can be and should be an exciting experience.  It does not have to be dull, drab, or boring.  When I say this I am, of course, not speaking in absolutes.  None of us would expect, or even want, continuous excitement.            Nevertheless, all of us, saint or sinner alike, do live for those times and places when life is exciting.  And we more or less endure that which lies in between.  In this we are all the same.  The difference between us is found in the ways and means […]

          One of the pet words of our day is tolerance.  It is a good word, but we have tried to stretch it over too great an area of life.  Sometimes we have  applied it too often where it does not belong.            Tolerance, in one sense, implies the compromise at times of one’s convictions, a yielding of ground upon important issues.  Hence, over-tolerance in moral issues has made us soft, and could leave us devoid of conviction.         We have become tolerant about the use of drugs or alcohol; we have become […]